Gregorians, Lara;
(2024)
Studying aesthetic and spatial responses to the built environment through a set of firstperson- view videos and brain imaging.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
Gregorians_Thesis.pdf - Other Download (44MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Almost all of our daily actions and events take place within a built environment, and these experiences involve many complex processes. On entering a space you will take in sensory information, form a mental map of the area, consider how it makes you feel, and ultimately make a series of decisions that (ideally) complement your given task or goal. This series of considerations can be seen as a combination of spatial, aesthetic and affective processing. However, there has thus far been little empirical crossover between these three pillars. This thesis brings these worlds closer together, to better understand how spatial, aesthetic and affective processing interrelate in architectural experience. First, we consider how we study architectural experience. In chapter 2, we address this by developing a database of first-person-view videos that walk the viewer through a series of built environments, and employ this database in an online behavioural study. We verify the database’s use for studying architectural experience by replicating findings from experiments using 2D images, and add further nuance to networks explaining how spatial and aesthetic qualities of built environments connect. Then, in chapter 3 we use this database of videos in an fMRI study to explore the brain regions that support spatial and aesthetic processing. We also consider how affect and other properties of spaces impact memorability. As expected, we find that key brain regions involved in valence processing activate in relation to positively valenced spaces, and that key spatial regions activate in relation to environments with complex spatial layouts. Notably, we also find that brain regions usually considered to be involved in spatial processing are also involved in valence processing. Overall, this thesis adds to our growing understanding of how we study architectural experience, and how we process and respond to core elements of environments.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Studying aesthetic and spatial responses to the built environment through a set of firstperson- view videos and brain imaging |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10188714 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
